First Week of "Not" School

Cal State San Bernardino is in full swing!  Crowded parking lots, students everywhere, Greeks getting ready for recruitment - there's just so much going on!

And I miss it.

It's not that I miss school itself... - no, actually I do miss school itself.  I miss learning, sitting in a classroom/studio where for the most part students also want to be there, and creating projects.  And of course I miss all the activities on campus and all my friends.  I met so many amazing and inspiring people there.  It's kinda hard to watch everybody go back to school and know that there are just some opportunities I cannot be apart of because I an no longer a student.  In a way it's kind of an isolating feeling.  Even looking at internships that I know have the time for are somewhat disappointing because they say you have to be a student.

I'm not really sure what to do with myself and how to transition.  I just want to be longer at that school.  There are so many great memories there and memories waiting to happen.  I hope I can find and work for an opportunity to move towards my dreams....my goals......which are still yet unclear besides the fact that I want to create art for the entertainment industry.  For now, I shall sketch and find ways to create art for my own (as well as anyone's) entertainment.

Anime and Blue Hair Dreams

To recap, this blog is intended to tell about my path of becoming an artist and my experiences getting there, thus, as far as "experiences getting there" at the moment those experiences involve anime and self expression (particularly in fashion).

I love anime.  Growing up I remember watching shows like Tokyo Mew Mew and all the Hayao Miyazaki movies.  Like other recreational activities, anime is a way for me to escape and see a world in the eyes of a different character.  Although anime is not a "fine art," a lot of the anime shows I have seen have their own artistic styles, stories, and sound that I can really appreciate.  They each have a certain vibe, and I can usually find one to match my mood.  It also inspires me, because I want to tell stories through moving pictures too.  I want to create character that people can relate to and that have a certain style to them.  Currently, I am watching a show called "Nana" by Ai Yazawa that originally began as a manga.  What I personally like about this series is that it has a much more grown up feel than a lot of other animes I've seen - it has drama and feels very true to life, yet with those anime comic moments sporadically between.  It is about two young women who move to Tokyo to find themselves and become independent in their own ways.  One is a punk rocker aspiring to make it big and the other is a happy-go-lucky girl who falls in love easily.  I can relate to these characters since I'm about the same age and I'm trying to find myself and what I'm meant to do too.  The music is awesome too!!!!

Hmmm......I wrote quite a bit about that anime........I guess it's safe to say I really really like anime.......and I analyze everything....

Anyways - Blue Hair Dreams!  I want to dye my hair blue.  Why?  Because it's been purple and red but not blue yet.  I put off dying my hair an unnatural color because I've been looking at job prospects, but I can't take it anymore.  Having some kind of stable job is important, but for my future career I don't need "natural" hair, and also one other thing - but I am an artist.  I need self expression in my life.  That's a reason why people get really into their fashion, because it how they present themselves becomes apart of them.  Sometimes there is a deep meaning in one's style, but other times it's just because they just like it.  I like to be different, and I feel like I'm so different, hence, blue hair.

Updates: This Blog and New Blog

So much time has passed since I last wrote a blog!

What have I been doing all this time?!

Two updates will be briefly covered:

• Updates to this blog
• Updates to a new blog

Updates to this Blog
As you may have already seen I redecorated my background (POLKA DOTS!), added a tab that I'm still working on, and changed the way you can follow me.  Instead of having "follow by email" I have a follow by "Join this site" button, which seems to be another way to follow by email.  I think this way will be easier - but we'll see.  I wanted to make this site a little more fun with the polka dots, but I also wanted to keep a clean look by sticking to a mainly white colored layout (having a hint of color though keeps everything clean while allow the audience to appreciate the color more).  Also, since I do not have a solid schedule yet, I will post at least two blog posts per week.  I will choose to write which day I want since I may not always be able to get to my computer on only Monday or Thursday.

Updates to a New Blog!
I created a blog!  A new blog!  So, I wanted to have a place to show my art online.  All this time I was trying to keep the "fine art" works and the more "design" works separate, however, regardless of career path, I am an artist, and right now all my work represents me and my skills.  Thus, I went ahead and included both fine artworks and design pieces.  I had the most trouble with writing HTML (I'm a little rusty) since I ran into a slight glitch, yet I will save that for another post.

Portfolio: http://jmjacuinde.blogspot.com/

In general, I've mainly been working on setting up an online portfolio, and finishing my Mutant SquidKitten character design (this will have to be yet another post).  The "job thing" is still kinda here and there.  For now, I'm not going to write about that, although "job" is very important to my development as an artist, everything is kinda like...like.....*some kinda here and there hand gesture*.  Yet, something I've been working with has been amazing!  I'm also looking into making an etsy account and possibly selling drawings.

Til next time!

Reflection for August

It's Monday!  That means time for another post!  Yay!

So, I have no idea what to write about.  Today I basically watched anime and drew chibi's all day, which is something I usual don't draw so I felt I was practicing something new.  I also watched Fruits Basket since I haven't had time to finish that anime.

I went to the Teen Choice Awards on Sunday, August 16, and that's something I usually don't get to do, so it was exciting.  My friend and I saw celebrities such as Sabrina Carpenter, 5 Seconds of Summer, Ellen, John Stamos, and everyone else you saw on television if you watched it.  One day I'll be up there!  For which award I don't know, but I see myself up there in the future.  Our seats where practically backstage so we had a good view of celebrity heads, and a really good view of the crew setting up equipment for the up coming performances.  I liked watching the work being put in to make the visual on television seem so "perfect" in a way.  Television/video creators are such artists at forming what they want the audience to view.  You have a small stage and camera that are moving around the actual smaller than expected room, yet everyone at home gets a different idea of what the show looks like.

On another note, I got to briefly see USC's School of Cinematic Arts which was really cool because I love entertainment and want to work in film (or maybe game design....as long as I'm doing art for entertainment).

I'm still trying to finish a character project I've been working on Photoshop, however, because of its "painterly" style it is taking forever-and-a-half.  But on my next free day I should really concentrate on it since that drawing is almost done.  As a challenge I started creating that same character on Illustrator and realized the vector techniques produce the character sooooo much faster, although the style is completely different.  Hopefully in the upcoming weeks I can write a blog about Photoshop and Illustrator.

Sorry if this Monday's blog is slightly scattered, I just wasn't sure what to write about.  I blame too much anime (and my extremely long nap).  Till next time!

Multiple Identity Crisis

So, I have a friend named Jess.
Who likes Jess, but she knows that Jess is different than Jessica.
Jessica shows up on more professional occasions, but for other occasions she likes the "Amazing and Powerful Empress Jessica Ha-Queen-de" because - well...........just because.
Overall, she just wants to find herself and all her other selves and be able to manage the whole flock of herselves......or herself.
WHAT IS MY NAME?!

Basically, I am dealing with figuring out how I want to brand myself, and what is the best way to go about it (also, sorry I'm late with my post).

I started CreativeLifeJMJ as a place to be myself and share more of my illustrations and design work, while I left my name "Jessica Jacuinde" as my fine art side.  I wanted to keep these sides split so if I ever came across someone in the entertainment industry I could point them to my CreativeLifeJMJ accounts, and if I was trying to apply for an art exhibit I can have my full name for that.  However, since the entertainment industry is professional too, I've come to realize that I want to use my full name for that too.  I am also trying to decide if I want to leave CreativeLifeJMJ as a place just for my illustrations and designs, or if I want to do what I originally intended to do and just have an outlet for whatever I wanted to post.  The more I think about it, the more I want to just have one place where my audience can see all my work and not have it split, because when I'm applying to a job I want all my skills and variety of styles to be present.

There's a lot to think about and figure out still, but right now trying to deal with splitting myself into two people (designer vs. fine artist) or staying whole is one of the issues I am facing.  Like everything else in life, this is "to be continued."

Week After the "Creating a Schedule" Blog

I'm here to report that I didn't follow my schedule.
Well, for the most part I did.
But not exactly.
For some reason at the end of last week I did not feel I followed my schedule because I did not get to some items on my list, however, after going back over my schedule, I actually did do some of what is on my list.  That's okay I did not follow it exactly.  This was only the first week, and often it is hard to completely succeed the first time doing something.  So, time to reflect.  Let's look at two separate lists, "Reason Why I Didn't Follow My Schedule" and "What Can I Do to Improve My Schedule".

Reasons Why I Didn't Exactly Follow My Schedule:

• Waking up at 7am:  Waking up at an earlier time than I've been usually waking up is slightly difficult, especially when I wake up that early knowing I don't really have to wake up at that time. (and I'm a night owl)  Self discipline is necessary to work on when working from home and for yourself.  I notice that when I have a deadline or job for someone else, I can easily discipline myself to get it done.  Yet, when I am working for myself I can feel a little sluggish.  Insert slug image I worked on today:

• I had way too many expectations:  Recognizing that one may not get everything done that they wanted to get done is important to understanding what is real.  I thought I could commit enough time to multiple projects in one day, but since I wanted to do my best on the project I was working on, other projects needed to be put on hold.  It seems better to focus on one thing at a time to make sure that one project is extremely good than to work on many projects and have a bunch of semi good ones.

What Can I Do to Improve My Schedule:
I say "improve" my schedule instead of "how can I follow it" because I realize that this is something that I set for myself.  The boss of this schedule is me, so I need to work with myself to find the best solution.  Does myself understand?  Yes, self I understand.

Before this becomes a blog about my discussions with myself, here is what I plan to do different:

• Allow myself enough time for individual projects. 
• Wake up at 7am or at least close enough to that time (8am for starters)
• Make time to respond to emails and look up new opportunities every morning (at least give 30 - 45 minutes for this)
• Write in my planner every night to remember my plans for the upcoming day

If anyone has advice as to how they manage and follow their own schedule please comment below.  Thank you!  Be creative!

ART 326: Character Designing and Creating Sprite Sheets

This past year at California State University, San Bernardino, I took an Interactive Multimedia Design class where we, the artists, worked with the gaming class, the programmers.  When I took the class it was the first time the university offered it, and I really enjoyed the experience.  It was very much like a work environment were we worked in teams and discussed plans for our game.

As artists, we divided ourselves and distributed the jobs.  Each of us worked on a few character designs, while I also had the job of creating sprite sheets.  Since our goal for the quarter was to have a really simplistic demo done, I did not have to create all of the characters but only the characters that were necessary for that section.  I usually do "painterly" styled digital work, so this was a new challenge for me.  On top of that I had never used Adobe Illustrator before, and I knew I needed to create vector graphics because we were not entirely sure about the size we needed the characters yet.

To start off, I created a few character designs.  When creating a design for a character it's a good idea to draw them in different styles.  This way you get an idea with what you (or your team) feels goes best with the tone of the game (or any other product).  Also when determining what style to go with, remember that more detailed work usually takes more time to render, and rasterized images are harder to expand.

Here are some sketches I did with colored pencil:

After discussing with my group, we decided to go with one style for the sprites and a more detailed one for the sprites that pop-up to talk.  While I was still sketching ideas of the character design, I taught myself Adobe Illustrator by fiddling around with the tools and lots of YouTube videos (Youtube, one of my best friends).  Here is the sprite sheet I ended up creating.

Even though we never continued adding to the game after the class, I really enjoyed the work environment and very hands on experience getting to communicate with other students from a different field.  I definitely would recommend taking a class like this (or this same class).  Also, don't be afraid to experiment and use a program you've never used before.

Creating a Schedule

So I have my goal (I've decided to play checkers ((refer to previous blog))), which is finding myself as an artist.  Now I need to form a game plan.

Keeping a consistent, yet flexible, schedule is a great way to motivate yourself and stay on track.  I always have so many ideas and want to do so much,  but when I do not set an actually plan sometimes nothing (or little bits of everything) gets done.  If you are serious about obtaining your goal, get a planner or even a sheet of paper, and write down your schedule.  Being able to physically see your schedule written down as opposed to holding it in your head will help you remember what to do and in what particular order.

I have my own little mint planner (loving that color so much right now) that I try to write everything down, so not only do I know what I want to do, but I have a record of what I have previously done so I remember my days better.  For my path of discovering myself, and growing up, I have decided I will try to follow this general schedule, until I form an even more solid one:

Sunday

open for finding opportunities or working on my own projects

Monday - Thursday

 wake up at 7am

morning routine

(write blog on Monday and Thursday)

work 4-6 hrs.

break

 work on designs

Friday 

wake up at 7am

morning routine

work 2-4 hrs.

break

personal project

Saturday 

work

open rest of the day

This is my schedule I have set for myself for now.  Let's see if I can keep it or when I can improve it.  Remember, if you are trying to discipline yourself more and get the most out of your day, setting a schedule can be beneficial.  Also, life happens, and everyday will not be according to plan, so try to work around it and get ahead of projects if you know something is coming up.  You can always switch times and activities around until you figure out what works best.  It's your schedule.

Emerging Arist: Setting Goals

Often, the first step to succeed in life is to set a goal.  For example, concentrating on what you want to do in life, or what do you want your career to be?  But when you don't know exactly what that goal is sometimes you might need to set an alternative objective.  Maybe, not specifically "what" you want to be in life, but "who" do you want to be in life.

I want to be happy.  I want to be successful, whatever that is (a decent paycheck, having a place of my own, good education, etc).   I want to do something good in the world.  I want to be remembered someway.  I want to make good use of my talents.  I want to be an artist.

I want to be an artist in someway for the entertainment industry, yet I do not want to abandon the idea of possibly also being an artist who shows their work in galleries and such.  I know their are blurry lines like a checkerboard, dividing the different spaces to get to certain art fields, and I guess I want to play the game and start placing my checkers forward, in different spaces, and finding which path in art I belong on.  After having just graduated from a university, and spending sometime to sit around and think, I know I want to do and be great.  And I want to find what I love and experience a creative life for myself.

The whole point and goal of my blog is to find where I belong as an artist and figure out my calling.  There is no set deadline to finding this out because I know it will be a journey with many options, and like the game of checkers sometimes you will lose some, but at other times you will be king.

- welcome to the creative life of JMJ